


Short Back and Sighs

by otherwiseestella



Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Bull's Chargers, Canon Trans Character, Dirty Talk, Dirty Thoughts, Domestic, Domestic Fluff, Fluff and Smut, Gender Dysphoria, Hair, Haircuts, M/M, Rain, Storm Coast (Dragon Age), Trans Male Character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-16
Updated: 2017-10-16
Packaged: 2019-01-18 08:16:48
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,700
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12384381
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/otherwiseestella/pseuds/otherwiseestella
Summary: The Chargers are on the Storm Coast, waiting to meet the Herald. Krem would be having a great time, more or less, if it wasn't for his fucking hair. It's too long, and he keeps getting drips of cold water down his neck. Luckily, Bull's got more skills in this department than he lets on.OR:Krem wants to look good. Maybe his hair is a good place to start. Bull certainly thinks so.This is a fluffy and smutty fic inspired by a suggestion from the wonderful Ottermouse. I had such fun writing it.[As ever: I am a cis woman writing a canon trans character. I do research and aim to be respectful to all trans experience. If I'm fucking it up, please please tell me. Krem experiences mild dysphoria for a short part of this fic. If this might trigger you, please don't read.]





	Short Back and Sighs

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Ottermouse](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ottermouse/gifts).



Fuck, but the Storm Coast was bad. Not bad like swarms of undead kicking down your tavern door, sure, but bad all the same. For twenty-thousandth time that morning, Krem flicked his soaking wet hair out of his face. Not that there was anything to see, exactly, except more hulking wrecks on the shoreline and Bull’s shoulders up ahead, grey as the cliffs that towered over them, but he hated it hanging there. Hated anything that interrupted his line of sight. Ongoing fight, that, about wearing a helmet that protected his head versus one that obscured his vision. He’d no idea how Templars did it.

Behind him, Rocky was talking to Dalish about the types of stone they had around here. Famous among dwarves, apparently, even surface dwarves, for the way it took carving softly, but stood against all weather, stayed looking new for thousands of years. It might have been beautiful, Krem thought, if it wasn’t for the Maker-damned rain.

A cry up ahead, and beyond that, three figures in drab red cloth. The place was lousy with bandits, and Bull had decided on a daily prize for the highest tally. Field-training, basically, but Bull stuck out his tongue when Krem called it that, told him that bandits were just for fun. Dalish was on seven, and it wasn’t far past noon. He bent forward, into a run, and couldn’t help but grin as he caught Bull’s eye. 

‘Look, Chief, field-training!’

As he swung his axe, Bull raised an eyebrow: ‘You’re lucky you’re good with a maul, ‘vint.’

‘Doesn’t hurt that I’m good looking’, and then Krem shut his mouth, quickly, so that he didn’t swallow any of the bandit’s blood. It arced out of his neck really pretty, though. Wasn’t easy to get a clean beheading with the maul. He’d been practising.

He looked around for the other one, but the corpse was gently smoking. Dalish, then, with one of her ‘fire arrows’. He pushed the body over with one toe, until a purse of bright coins fell out. He chucked it back to Dalish, who grinned. ‘Drinks on me!’ she called, adding ‘not that there’s a tavern less than a day’s march from here’, under her breath.

Come evening, they set up camp down near the great sea’s edge, the rocks forming a natural half-circle one side, the sea another. Dalish did that thing she never spoke about, made sure the tents were warm and dry, started a fire despite the downpour. Grim started the stew. He’d been experimenting; something with sour dried berries he’d bought from a Northern merchant. They cut through the fat of the nug meat, made the whole camp smell warm and welcoming. Better than his usual experiments.

Krem ducked into his tent, rolled out his bedroll on his usual side. As he bent forward to unfold his blanket, something wet hit the end of his nose, rolled down over his chin. Instinctively, he reached his hand to his forehead.

It was water from his fucking hair. Again. It was so long now that it seemed to hold water, to roll down over his face when he wasn’t expecting it. And the water probably had bandit blood in it, of all things.  
In Tevinter, soldiers got their hair cut every two weeks, sat in rows as the shears did their work. A short cut, all over, close to the head. Afterwards they looked like strange bald ducklings, but it kept any of them from standing out too much. It had been oddly perfect, Krem thought, to make sure he blended right in.

 

Now, though, there was nobody to blend in with. Skinner’s hair was long and beautiful, shock-white. For a while, Krem was certain moonlight made it glow, but she’d told him that was bollocks. Grim and Rocky, he knew, were locked in some sort of competition to grow the most ridiculous mane of hair. Grim’s blond waves were winning: he looked like a Ferelden hero. Dalish kept hers short, periodically growing it at Skinner’s request, until she couldn’t stand it any longer, and hacked it off. Of the lot of them, only Stitches ever had a half-decent haircut, thanks to the sorts of favours a healer can do. Always had the freshest bread, the best ale, and some barber would clip him for free in exchange for a healing poultice, something for his pigs, something to keep his wife’s bones from aching. Lucky bastard.

He was sorting through his pack for fabric and a needle when Bull ducked into the tent. He shook himself like a dog, and turned to grin at Krem.

‘Wetter than a barmaid’s cunt. Last time we agree a rendezvous on the Storm Coast, Kremling.’

‘Aye, Chief. You can say that again. Maybe the Herald’ll just be impressed we haven’t drowned yet.’

Bull unfolded a sturdy stool, sat down near the back of the tent, leant forward to rub his knee. He looked at Krem appraisingly.

‘You trying to out-do Grim and Rocky?’

Krem ran his fingers through his hair self-consciously. ‘Nah, chief. Just – better with a maul than scissors.’

Bull snorted at that. ‘Want me to do it?’

Krem looked at him suspiciously. ‘Not exactly an advert for beautiful locks, are you?’

Bull laughed. ‘Maybe not. But the Tamassrans teach us. Lines of Imekari, one behind the other. Course, its mostly braids and Qunari shit, but there’s cutting, too.’

It is one thing to understand, intellectually, that what they tell you about the Qun in Tevinter is propaganda: Qunari don’t eat babies, sure, and as far as Krem’s concerned, if they’re anything like Bull is, they can’t be a bad bunch. But it's a bit of a stretch to think of Bull – both eyes, then, face probably smooth of scars, horns barely peeping through, sitting and plaiting the hair of another little Qunari in front of him.

‘Probably shouldn’t tell too many ‘vints that the Qun’s just a fancy hairdressing school, Chief.’

‘Yeah. They’ll all be clamouring to join, vain fuckers. Still. D’you want me to do it? Not like we’ll be going outside again.’

Krem’s stomach flops. It isn’t that he feels weird about it: he and Bull, you know. And isn’t that the most intimate thing, all hot breath and the line between too-much and not-enough? But he’s never had anyone he cared about touch his hair, look after him, like he’s someone that should happen to. He looks at Bull’s face. As ever, there’s that openness in the slight crinkle of Bull’s eyes that lets something liquefy inside him.

‘Sure, Chief’, he says. ‘But I don’t want it to look like yours. No offence.’

Krem finds another stool, sets it up next to Bull’s, where the light is ok, and they aren’t likely to be disturbed. Bull goes to his pack, finds scissors, a funny little brush that looks like its made of Fennec hair, and pulls old sacking round the bottom of Krem’s chair to catch the hair.

‘You want anything?’ Bull’s voice is close behind him, and it makes the hairs of his neck stand on end. 

‘What?’

‘Well, you’re gonna be here for a while, so if you need a piss or want an ale, might as well do it now.’

Krem can feel his face pinking. Sure, they were – they did – they had – whatever, but hierarchies are hierarchies, even in a mercenary band. And Krem likes making sure Bull’s got a tankard at his left hand. And he knows that Bull would kill him if he suspected, but he likes bringing him dinner so he can rest his leg a bit longer by the fire of an evening. Likes making sure he rides on Bull’s blind side, fights on it – sleeps on it too, now, so there’s always a good pair of eyes there.

Bull senses his hesitation, breathes out. ‘Qunari thing. First time you’ve let me – you know. Guy cutting the hair gets the drinks.’

Krem stays quiet, but he wonders if Bull can feel his smile. He leans back, fractionally, into Bull’s warmth. Idly, his mind wonders what it might feel like to have that warmth available forever. He doesn’t dwell on it.

‘Ale. Rocky’s got brandy, found it in an Antivan wreck this morning. Drop of that wouldn’t hurt.’

‘Don’t worry, Leiutenant Aclassi. Not gonna let you get used to it.’ He gets off his stool, mutters something about all Tevinters that Krem’s glad he can only half-hear.

Bull brings the ale hot, the way Krem likes on a freezing, wet day. There’s more than a drop of brandy, but that isn’t what makes his face pink. It’s the way Bull’s fingers brush against his as he hands the flagon over, the way he makes sure to catch Krem’s eye and wink. Krem sincerely doubts that he will ever, ever, find a day when his stomach stays still under such kindness.

‘What do you want, then?’ Bull’s voice behind his shoulder again, all rumble and laugh. ‘Cos I’ve got ideas.’

‘Bloody bet you have’, and Krem cups his hands round the ale. ‘Dunno. Not Tevinter-short.’

‘You want me to just have go?’

Krem nods. The Chief is being – he won’t give it a name, here. Won’t call it loving, won’t come within a fucking mile of ‘reverent’. But its like he knows, like he understands that – 

‘Its just hair, Chief. You fuck it up, it grows back.’

And he’s glad he can’t see the Chief’s face when he says ‘sure, Krem, sure’, in exactly the same kind, open voice he uses when he needs to deal with Krem’s binder, or that day he found him on his courses.

Krem stays in his seat – thank you very much – and does not shiver or flinch when Bull’s fingers gently scratch at the back of his neck. The Chief keeps his nails short – claws, Stitches calls them, and it’s true, they do curve, sharp and menacing when they’re long – but even clipped, they scratch delightfully. Krem’s got stripes down his back to prove it. He’s never felt them like this, though, soft and inquiring. 

He hears Bull breathe. Bull, who can keep himself still and immovable as marble, breathes out a genuine settling breath, as if preparing himself, and sets to work.

He starts moving his fingers – so strong, so thick, and Krem won’t think about that, won’t think about the way they open him up – in patterns that at first seem random, but build, delicate and persistent, up his neck, looping round his ears and onto the crown of his head. 

The pleasure starts like distant buzzing, fuzzy and indistinct, but it brightens as Bull moves over the crown of his head, until Krem feels like he’s floating, spaced-out and dopey. He realises, before he can stop himself, that he’s just made a sound like a happy dog.

‘Tamassrans teach this to Imekari.’ And Bull’s voice joins the buzzing, loops and dips round his ears, as beautifully as his fingers. ‘Soothes the little ones down. Less work when they can do it for each other.’

Krem tries to respond, he really does. But it gets lost in his throat somewhere, comes out as a soft whine. He’ll fall for it, being soothed like a tetchy little Qunari, if it feels this fucking good.

Bull makes a soft noise with his tongue in time to the press-rub-release of his thumbs, and Krem can feel his eyelids grow heavy.

 

‘You like that, little ‘vint?’

Krem nods and without thinking about it, arches into the touch. It’s then that Bull leans forward, kisses soft at the back of his neck.

‘Been watching it grow. Itching to touch it for weeks, now. Gonna make you look so fucking good, Krem.’

Krem wriggles on the stool, feeling heat pool slowly between his legs. Bull leans forward, breathes in. Must smell him – and that shouldn’t turn him on like it does, shit – because he presses himself up against Krem’s back, lets him feel the twitch and swell of his cock, kisses again, moves Krem’s head gently so he can lave a patch under his chin with his tongue, just where he knows Krem likes it.

Then, he breathes in his ear again. ‘Thought you’d like this. You’re gonna have to stay still, though, unless you want your ear nicked.’

But he doesn’t pick up scissors. Instead, he keeps running his fingers electric through Krem’s hair, over pressure points he’d never noticed, making everything soft and singing.

‘You bastard’, Krem murmurs. ‘fucking want you, now.’

Bull picks up the scissors, clucks his tongue. ‘Gonna fuck you later, yeah? You’ll be so hard by then you’ll barely know your own name, so slick that I don’t even need oil to open up your ass.’

‘Shit’, Krem manages, and if there’s a hint of reverence in his voice then fuck it, there it is. Chief’s earned that, and more, with his clever thumbs and this wholly unexpected interest in Krem’s appearance, in making him look good.

Eventually, though, he picks up scissors. Brushes the hair so it hangs even. It makes Krem laugh, spotting himself in the small glass they hang inside their tent (mainly so Krem can check his bindings at the back, even though that’s largely unnecessary now Bull seems to tie them every morning). He looks likes he’s preparing for the Tevinter Templars, who wear their hair long and bleak in piety.

‘Somehow, Chief, I don’t think this look’s a keeper.’

Bull snorts. ‘You look like that cobbler in Denerim. Remember, the one who put the steel caps back in Rocky’s boots after that cave-in? Hair looked like it had Gurgut-spit in it.’

He starts trimming. Short, sure strokes, holding sections with two practised fingers. It really has got long. It’s still damp, and little flecks of it flutter to the floor.

‘How d’you wear yours before, Chief?’ Krem asks. Krem never asks, usually. Lets Bull share his life as he wishes, never pushes and never expects. Krem knows how old memories can be. Even if its not that they’re off-limits, they might still make you close up.

Unexpectedly, Bull replies, voice level as he continues cutting.

‘Wore it long, when I was Imekari. All black braids. Used to have ribbon through them sometimes. It was a – there’s no translation – but if we’d done well, or been brave.’

Then he quiets for a minute, concentrating on the hair closest to Krem’s face.

‘Seheron, the soldiers had to wear it short. Vint mages fucking loved the way it went up in flames. They used to laugh, say we braided gaatlock into it.’

The quiet returns, but it’s heavier now. Before he can think about it, Krem opens his mouth. ‘Used to have pigtails. Can you imagine? Fucking pigtails. Mother always said it made me look more like a girl. Then one day, I took a kitchen knife and hacked them off. Used to look at the Alti at market, the way the men wore their hair, all swept back like the tide going out. Used to want that, so bad.’

‘And now?’ Bull’s voice is calm.

‘Want to look like a soldier. Not – I mean, I’ll always look like a ‘vint soldier, but not as much, maybe?’

‘And what else?’

Krem laughs to cover up his embarrassment. ‘Put it this way, Chief, I want village girls to get slick, and I want certain hulking oxes to pop a stiff one when I’m fighting. Like a fucking wet dream with a maul. Think you can do that?’

Bull hums into the back of his neck, then, snakes a hand round to his front, runs it along the top of his trousers. Lets his thumb dip gently under. He’s still holding the scissors, and whilst Krem knows he wouldn’t let them slip it is nice, the frisson, the pretence that he has to stay still.

Gently, like it’s an accident, the sly bastard, Bull brushes his thumb right over Krem’s cock, through his smalls. Makes him suppress a full body shudder. He can’t help moaning, a tiny breathless catch of a thing, and he wants to buck his hips, get Bull to do it again, but he knows better than to think Bull will be derailed now.

‘Ugh. Low blow, Chief, priming a weapon you don’t intend to use.’

‘Not yet, sure’, Bull rumbles back, ‘but it doesn’t hurt to be prepared. And I like seeing how wound up you get when I make you tell me things. Gives me ideas.’

‘We’ve got a saying in Tevinter about Qunari and their ideas.’

‘Yeah? Well we’ve got one about little ‘vints with stiff cocks.’

Krem snorts. He shouldn’t enjoy this teasing, the way it makes him feel bare as a bone and bright as dawn. He’d worried, at first, that it was somehow girly, this flirting, that Bull’s taking him steadily to pieces brought down his defences in a lessening way. But then he realised that Bull teased the same whether he was eating Krem out or Krem had his dick up Bull’s ass. That he liked Krem for exactly himself, his comebacks, that it didn’t make a difference about any of the rest of it. That Krem’s undergarments didn’t come into it, except as a way to realise the pleasure, a way to bring the flirting to its messy, sticky, urgent conclusion.

‘I remember the first time I touched hair like yours’, Bull says, quiet. ‘Vidathaari Tamassran, only my first or second visit. She was…she had this long, red hair, wore it in a braid down her back. Let it out when I asked her. Think I came just from running my fingers through it.’ He sighs, fondly.

He’s about to reply when Krem realises Bull’s still speaking. ‘Your hair, Krem. It’s got that colour, you know, changes when the light hits.’

‘Skinner always says I’ve got hair the colour of nug-shit, Chief.’

Bull laughs. ‘Yeah maybe. Nugshit in some lights, Fennec spoor in others.’

‘Pure poetry. Thanks.’

They settle then, Bull right up against Krem’s back, half-hard and comforting. Krem lets himself space out, listen to the soft sound of the rain on the tent, the low talking of first guard. It takes Bull a while, keeps tilting Krem’s head to one side, checking. Then he gets out a razor, flicks its blade out so it catches under the soft light. He chuckles in Krem’s ear as he holds his chin still, so that the blade can run smoothly up, trim the hair tight to his head, leaving the top long. At some point, Krem notices idly, their breathing has synced up. He’s still slick, still got that hot, dull feeling between his legs, but it’s softer. It keeps him calm, doesn’t feel urgent, and Maker, it’s nice.

It's a shock, almost, when Bull pulls back, stands up – his knee is acting up, Krem thinks, judging by that crack – and spins Krem round to face him. It’s more of a shock when Krem sees Bull’s face. It’s – soft? – maybe that’s wrong. But – proud, maybe? Whatever it is, Krem feels it like a funny new weight in his heart.

‘How do I look?’ He smiles at the Chief, feels shy, like the first time he lifted a shield up. Like he wants to know the answer, but he’d also rather not.

‘Fucking wet dream with a maul, I’d say.’ Bull laughs, so low in his throat that it’s almost a rumble. ‘Look.’

Krem turns to the mirror. Whatever it is, he tells himself, it’ll be better than it was. No more flicking it out of his face. He can already feel the air of the tent on his neck, and his head feels lighter.

He looks in the mirror, and he feels his mouth open. Sees it, too, jaw dropped like a recruit’s sword. But fuck. Fucking fuck. He looks – 

He looks like what he asked for. He looks like him. Not Lieutenant Aclassi, not a soldier on the run, not all the bullshit that came before that. Bull can’t read minds. He’s pretty sure. They’d have mentioned it, in Tevinter, if Qunari could read minds. But its like Bull has pulled something out from inside him, the way he wished he’d always looked, and somehow done it. Fuck knows how his jaw looks squarer, or how Bull’s managed to get his hair to sit like that, so it won’t get in the way but isn’t so short it doesn’t move. Or how he’s got the sides so neat, or – 

‘Wasted as a mercenary. Thought the Qun put you lot to best use?’

There’s a snort from behind him, but Bull doesn’t answer back.

Something in that moment of quiet makes Krem speak soft, drop his voice so that there’s no chance of overhearing. 

‘Don’t know how you did it, Chief. It looks, yeah. Good. So. Thank you. Yeah?’

And then Bull’s pressed against him, pulling him up off the stool and into a kiss. Its urgent, all teeth and Krem feels it too, the sudden need to cover the moment with something that isn’t speaking.

When Bull pulls away, he leans to speak low in Krem’s ear. ‘So fucking hot, kadan. I want to do it again, next time.’

Krem can’t answer, because whatever it is in his heart has climbed up into his throat, but he nods his head, bites down on the edge of Bull’s jaw. He notices the word in Qunlat, wonders if it’s something to do with hair, or fucking. He’ll ask, but not now, because now, he wants Bull inside him far, far more than he wants anything else.

‘Still think you can prep me without oil, Chief?’ He cocks an eyebrow, smirks.

Bull grins right back, all heat and teeth and promise.

‘Things I’m gonna do? You better fucking believe it.’

In the distance, Krem can hear the waves on the rocks, the beating rain. It’ll still be there in the morning, along with a weird Herald with a glowing hand, if she’s on time. The Storm Coast is bad, fucking bad. Bad and weird and wet. But right now? Yeah, right now he’s pretty fucking lucky to be there.


End file.
